Entangled Pasts, 1768–now : 5 Star Exhibition at The Royal Academy London

The Royal Academy brings together over 100 major contemporary and historic works as part of a conversation about art and its role in shaping narratives of empire, enslavement, resistance, abolition and colonialism – and how it may help set a course for the future.

Artworks by leading contemporary British artists of the African, Caribbean and South Asian diasporas, including Sonia Boyce, Frank Bowling, Mohini Chandra and Isaac Julien will be on display alongside works by artists from the past 250 years including Joshua Reynolds, J.M.W.Turner and John Singleton Copley – creating connections across time which explore questions of power, representation and history.

In the setting of the Main Galleries, visitors can experience large-scale works including the life-size painted cut-out figures of Lubaina Himid’s installation Naming the Money, and Hew Locke’s Armada, a flotilla of ‘votive boats’ recalling different periods and places. Plus, powerful paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings and prints by El Anatsui, Barbara Walker, Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker, Shahzia Sikander, John Akomfrah and Betye Saar.

Informed by the ongoing research of the RA and its colonial past, this exhibition engages around 50 artists connected to the RA to explore themes of migration, exchange, artistic traditions, identity and belonging.

Main Image :Kara Walker Hon RA, no world, from an Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters, 2010